Warning: Incoherent Rambling
After the adventure in liver poisoning that St. Patrick's Day (and the following weekend) invariably represents, I thought it might be helpful to provide a bit of an explanation of how alcohol works down here because, like up north, it's pretty common for people to share a beer or five when out socializing. Odds are if you're reading thins you're not exactly a teetotaler (given the general makeup of my social circle), so I'm assuming this will be helpful to most of you.
Beer!
To my right you'll see a bottle of Imperial, which is the most commonly-consumed beverage in the country from what I've seen. It's as ubiquitous as Budweiser but amazingly doesn't taste like it was poured down an incontinent donkey's backside just before bottling. In fact, the closest comparison in flavor would be a less bitter Amstel Light. It's a (very) blond lager, which works out pretty well given how bloody hot it gets down here. There's also a light version, which I haven't touched because I like my beer to have actual flavor, but either way this stuff is cheap and refreshing. The hotter it gets, the more you enjoy it.
Your next option is Pilsen. Made by the same company as Imperial (effectively the only brewery here), it has two flavors. Regular pilsen is generally a bit lighter and less flavorful than Imperial. It's usually the same price, so in general I'll take the latter. Pilsen 6.0 is a different animal though (it actually appears to have some hops in it!) and has its alcohol content in the name, but if you're looking for craft beer you're pretty much going to have to smuggle it. Not to say that it isn't tasty, and in fact if you're an IPA person you could do worse than Pilsen 6.0. There are better offerings to be found, but it'll do the trick.
The "high-end" beer they produce here is called Bavaria, which comes in three varieties: Light, Gold and Dark. Light is more or less the same piss-water you're used to from most light beers, and so I refuse to count it. Gold and Dark however bear mentioning because they're significantly better than Pilsen or Imperial (and more expensive as a result, but not by much). Bavaria Dark in particular is quite good, somehow managing to have the flavor and color of a dark beer without making you feel like you're drinking a side of beef. If you're a beer lover, make sure to try this one; you'll be pleasantly reminded of negra modelo. Gold isn't bad either, but with rare exceptions if you've had a blond before you have a pretty good idea what to expect.
Avoid Rock Ice. It is terrible, in the same way that rancid Wildcat is terrible. And under no circumstances should you drink its ugly sister, Rock Ice Limon. Unless you like your beer saltier than beef jerky that's had a salt shaker upended all over it. Get it for your unsuspecting friend if you want to be an ass, but nobody with functioning taste buds will be able to go past the first sip.
If you're craving something imported there's Heineken, but I won't be joining you. There are better domestic options that haven't been flown across 6 time zones to get here.
Beer bottom line: If you're looking to drink cheap get Imperial, if you're looking to get drunk get Pilsen 6.0, and if you actually like beer get Bavaria. All of them are drinkable even in the most fetid jungle hell Costa Rica has to offer, so don't limit yourself to the golden beers just cause you're all sweaty.
Wine!
My experiences with wine have been limited here, since Costa Rica is a beer-drinking culture even more so than Canada, but I can say a few words about it. You can find some decent imported wines (one of my favorites is readily available), but in general wine is more expensive here than in North America.
If you're traveling on a penniless hitchhiker budget, however, you're probably familiar with box wine. Here the main option is Clos, which goes for just under $5 a litre and is heartily endorsed by pretty much all the German girls I've gone drinking with here. It's surprisingly not bad, though depending on how sophisticated your palate is you might need to start off with the white and chill it to nigh freezing. The Cabernet isn't exactly awful given the price, but odds are if you actually like wine you may need to repeat the price to yourself like a mantra until your taste buds give up.
Hooch!
The next time one of your drunken Johnny-Depp-wannabe friends shouts "Where's the rum gone?" you can safely respond "Costa Rica!" There's definitely a bias in favor of this sugar-cane-based drink as far as liquor goes. Smirnoff is readily available, and whiskey is certainly around, but you'll have a harder time finding the good stuff than you might like.
Rum, on the other hand, is plentiful. There's some pretty damn good Central American rum floating around (Ron Zacapa comes to mind), and honestly I think of rum as a warm-weather drink more so than vodka. Avoid "light" rum.
As far as domestic options go, I've tried Flor de Cana and Ron Centenario. They both come in several varieties, with quality scaling with price. The former you can find in four types, though I'm not bothering with the light rum they offer. The dark rum comes in 4, 5, and 6 year-old varieties, the cheapest being around 6000 Colones (bit less than $12) and scaling up to closer to $20. So not a bad deal. A decent bottle of Centenario will be somewhere around 8 or 9k.
I expect to become better acquainted with rum over the coming months, and will post my findings as I, er, find them.
That's it for now. Feel free to ask questions.
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